FILM CRITIQUE:
A re-working or re-imagining (or whatever Tim Burton wants to call it) of Pierre Boule's novel about space traveling humans in 2029. Through a time warp, one discovers a future post-Apocalypse world in which technology is dead, apes and chimpanzees rule and humans are enslaved. 

Burton's visionary genius inspires extreme reactions, especially among hardcore fans of the original 'Planet Of The Apes' movies. Some question the casting of Mark Wahlberg as the stoic astonaut hero but I find him perfect because he's supposed to be a bit thick, a slow learner, a military-like man with a singular objective -- getting out alive. 

Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter and Michael Clarke Duncan are all superb as simians. The only miscast is more amusing than off-putting: Estella Warren is an absurd nonentity as the supposedly sexy human who spends most of the movie with mouth agape mooning over Wahlberg. Even Helena Bonham Carter, playing a chimp, comes across as more human than Estella (Call-me-Cardboard) Warren. Overall, the film is a state-of-the-art triumph. The film's FX are absolutely dazzling. The moral messages about racial tolerance and acceptance are strong. And the cheeky, illogical trick ending is still driving audiences nuts. 

DVD FORMAT:
Original widescreen version (2.35:1). 

AUDIO:
English 5.1 Surround, English 5.1 DTS, Spanish Surround. 

LANGUAGES:
English or Spanish (dub). 

SUBTITLES:
English. 

CHAPTERS: 
To be confirmed. 

THE DVD: OVERALL IMPRESSION: 
A state-of-the-art double disc. The almost-everything-included bonanza of bonus materials helps vaults this release to the head of the class. Other than deleted scenes, audition tapes and detailed bios and filmographies of the cast & crew, it's hard to think of anything that's missing. The presentation is superb and all the materials on Disc 2 are extremely well organized, making choices easy. The content is exhaustive, comprehensive and presented without the false hype found on many DVDs. 

THE MAIN MENU:
With theme music, the Disc 2 double menu presents the bonus materials with dynamism and imagination as an animated gorilla warrior moves on screen to help make your selections. There are two major line-ups of choices, one of them devoted to making-of materials, the other to promotion of the film. 

FEATURE-LENGTH COMMENTARY:
Tim Burton and Danny Elfman. 

TRAILER AND TV SPOTS:
Offered is a teaser, the original theatrical trailer, six TV spots plus trailers on 'Moulin Rouge' and 'Dr. Dolittle 2'. There is also a promo for the soundtrack CD. 

DOCUMENTARIES:
The behind-the-scenes material is organized on two menus, one called The Making Of The Apes, the other Promotional Works. Individual documentaries and featurettes on each menu separate the subject material, making access easy. 

*Simian Academy (24:08): Movement coach and stuntman Terry Notary introduces us the the Ape School for Humans, the training necessary to get the cast moving like apes and chimps. "It really is like going back and being a child," says Notary. "Let all your training go. Lets all your thoughts go. Just be direct." Meanwhile, the chimps in the film went to what the filmmakers called a Human School for Apes, to train them to don astronauts gear and do the awkward (for chimps) thumbs-up in the space capsule. 

*Face Like A Monkey (29:43): Make-up genius Rick Baker and his crew show in meticulous detail what the actors went through on the arduous make-up trail. The goal was to ensure the actors' expressions would be seen. "So much is available technologically," says Burton, "but we wanted to keep it actor-driven (and) performance-based." Baker explains the acute challenge of casting someone like Tim Roth, because of the Englishman's large nose and thin upper lip, which made a simian appearance difficult to achieve. 

*Ape Couture (6:31): Costume designer Colleen Atwood clothes the apes and humans. 

*Screen Tests: Divided into five segments. These are brief excerpts from the hours of footage in which Burton did camera tests on the look of the stunts (4:13), the make-up (3:45), the costumes (1:34), group interaction (2:37) and general ape movement (1:46). Except for the stunt tests, each segment comes up as a "quad-split" with four active images on screen. You can choose the audio of any one of the four or enlarge any one of the four images to play full screen. 

*Chimp Symphony Op. 37 (9:38) Danny Elfman's theme music is recorded at the Marilyn Monroe Scoring Stage on the Fox studio lot in June, 2001. 

*Lake Powell (11:58): The actors tell monkey jokes as they freeze on the commuter boats taking them across the windswept Lake Powell, where most of the rugged desert scenes were shot. This is significant because the original 'Planet Of The Apes' movie shot here too. 

*Swinging From The Trees (9:31): Movement coach Terry Notary and stunt coordinator Charlie Croughwell show us how the wire work was done to make the apes into super-simians for the movie. 

*Multi-Angle Featurettes: Principal Photography: There are four sequences -- Limbo's Quadrangle, Sandar's House, Escape From Ape City and In The Forest -- in which a total of eight scenes are broken down with you getting to examine the shoot from different camera angles. 

*The Making Of Planet Of The Apes (26:41): This promotional HBO special is better than this things usually are. It starts with B&W video footage of actor and host Michael Clarke Duncan being woken up at 4 a.m. to start a long day of make-up and shooting. Says Duncan of the film: "Now trust me, whatever ideas you had in your head about 'Planet Of The Apes', forget about them because this 'Planet' is a whole different solar system!" Burton is heard denying that his film is either a re-make or a sequel: "It's a re-imagining of the mythology." 

DELETED SCENES:
Look under the heading Extended Scenes in The Making Of The Apes menu. Shown are five sequences which were trimmed down for the final cut of the film. 

MUSIC VIDEOS:
Paul Oakenfold presents 'Rule The Planet Remix': With bits of dialogue and Helena Bonham Carter's film narration, plus images from the film, we get Oakenfold's soundtrack album version of the Danny Elfman composition. 

GAMES & SONGS:
Click on Max's Playground in the main menu and you get a second access point to the Faith Hill video as well as two sing-along songs. There is also a choice of four simple children's games, including eight new ways to dress up The Grinch from lederhosen to pajamas. Cute for young kids. 

ON-SCREEN VISUAL INFO:
*A gallery of posters. They are shown as images mounted against a stylized scene from the film, which is distracting. 

*A gallery of stills of concept artwork. Very well organized in two sections, Scenes and Props, with 15 separate choices. Scenes section includes the storyboards. 

ON-SCREEN WRITTEN INFO:
Press kit info is provided on screen but, strangely, no cast & crew bios. 

DVD-ROM FEATURES:
Requires computer with DVD-ROM capability and running Windows 95 or higher. 

RATINGS (OUT OF FIVE): 

THE FILM: ****1/2 

THE DVD: *****  

     Hugh Hefner is so short, but what he lacks in stature, he more than makes up for in enthusiasm. The great Playboy mogul and his buxom entourage danced the night away at Deep's first anniversary party in Hollywood on Tuesday of last week. I was there with my friend Kittylicious, who ran into her friend Vince Vaughn, and we ducked out just in time to see the stalkarazzi following Mark Wahlberg to valet. 
     Along the way, we chanced upon those Star Shoes hipsters, Paul Devitt and Johnnie Nixon, who also popped into Deep to get an eyeful of the eye candy. Deep doorman Eric Elle had his work cut out for him that evening, and truly it was a stellar night. It started out with a romp at the Key Club, where I witnessed my homegirl Texas Terri rock so hard, she earned a whole new group of fans....The night's headliners, the Toilet Boys, were kind enough to let me use the backstage loo right before they started their set. Sometimes, the irony runs deep.... 

Mark Wahlberg, the former leader of The Funky Bunch, dishes about his old days as a pop star, what it's like to make movies and what goes best underneath those tight leather pants.

ChickClick: Was it easier to be a rock star than single-handedly battle a bunch of monkeys in Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes?
Wahlberg: Well, you'd be surprised. I don't know if you've ever had long hair like that -- [I did in Rock Star] but it was tough for me. It was a tough movie to make, lots of work. It certainly wasn't like my experience in the music world, where you just go and do a show and leave. We were filming the concerts, so it was like 14, 15 hour days, vocal lessons and guitar lessons. 

Is it your voice we hear on the screen?
I did a good chunk of it. I'd have to listen closely, you know. I studied with a vocal coach for like, six months, but we also had somebody else singing the songs.

Can you hit all the notes that your character does?
If I could get them all, it'd be all my voice.

Is there any comparison of your experiences in the music business between the kind of life your character in Rock Star leads?
No, obviously not, no. I tried to make it like that though. I had it going on a little bit, but not like these [heavy metal] guys. At my shows, there were 15-year-olds, 40-year-old women, or 40-year-old guys -- it wasn't like the rock world.

How did you get the right rock star attitude? Did you have to take lessons for that too?
Well, I took a crash course, actually. I went and hung out with all of these guys. I was researching the part pretty early on, and I went out to concerts as much as I could and hung out with those guys.

Was it difficult to live with such long hair?
It was very uncomfortable. Most of it was mine, but I had some extensions, and they stayed in the whole time. I grew my hair out for about a year and a half.

What about the leather pants? Did you wear underwear underneath them?
Well, when I could get them on I did. But it was always 80 degrees and we were always in leather. 

Did you have any heavy metal idols during the '80s?
I had no interest in [heavy metal] whatsoever -- that's why I was so excited to play this part, to see if I could pull it off.

Is it better to be a movie star than it is to be a music star?
It's the complete opposite. Rock stars get away with murder and actors are so busy lying and trying to portray an image that the littlest thing becomes a big deal. With musicians, it's expected, so they push it to the limit.

When are you going to take a break?
The day this movie comes out. I'm done for a long while. I'm still working -- I'm doing three projects this year, but they're all small movies that'll take just 10 weeks to shoot. 

Planet of the Apes took seven months, this one [Rock Star] took six months.

What are you going to do on your time off?
Just relax and see if I got any game left on the golf course. I'm just going to take it easy for a while, get my swing back.

Is there a special lady in your life right now?
Well, I think I may have already met her, so I don't want to blow it up

NEW YORK, Nov 15 (Reuters) - The much-ballyhooed Victoria's Secret fashion show will make its television debut this evening, pumping images of supermodels clad in bras and thongs into what is hoped to be millions of America's living rooms.

The annual fashion show, now in its sixth consecutive year, was taped on Tuesday in New York City's Bryant Park, where an estimated 1,100 invitees ogled celebrity supermodels like German-born Heidi Klum, Brazilian Gisele Bundchen, and America's favorite supermodel, the Juno-esque Tyra Banks.

The show will air at 9 p.m. EST on Thursday (0200 GMT Friday) on the television network ABC, which is owned by The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS - news).

More than 20 models, wearing everything from simple bras and panties to sequined corsets, thongs and six-foot wings, inspired many in the show's audience to hoot and holler as they watched the women strut down the runway showing the retailer's latest and greatest lingerie fashions.

Acrobatic angels, hanging from cables, glided and tumbled just a few feet above the heads of the crowd -- prompting more than a few ``oohs'' and ``ahs.''

Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, the opera and classical recording star who has performed at the Grammys and the Oscars, opened the show. Later, rhythm-and-blues diva Mary J. Blige stirred the audience with her goosebump-inducing version of ``Family Affair.'' The show closed with the Broadway Gospel Choir's exhilarating rendition of ``Let the Sunshine In.''

While it was ``standing room only'' for many, the front rows were packed with a slew of celebrities, including Sigourney Weaver, Macaulay Culkin, Ivana Trump, Regis and Joy Philbin, Alan Cumming, Stephen Baldwin, Tara Reid and Mark Wahlberg.

After Bocelli's performance, the first model pumped her way down the runway in a white suede halter bra and white leather panties.

READY FOR PRIME TIME

For many who attended the taping, the question immediately came to mind: How would a throng of nearly naked women fare on prime-time American television?

The models, all professionals and, obviously, enjoying themselves, did more jiggling than a bowl of Jell-O.

Victoria's Secret marketing chief Ed Razek told Reuters in a recent interview that is why the company gave ABC two days to review all of the footage from the show and put together a production the network deemed appropriate.

``We're not going to break any censorship laws,'' Razek said. ``A great deal of the attitude toward sex is in the mind anyway, isn't it?''

The first 30 ``outfits'' veered much closer to the edge than the final 30, with many of the models wearing rhinestone- and sequin-encrusted corsets, leather boypants (like tight short boxers), red patent leather camisoles and red leather panties.

The second group of styles favored simplicity over details meant to send a man's heart and hormones racing. This segment showed off the popular Victoria's Secret Miracle Bra and matching Second Skin Satin thong underwear.

The show's entire final half consisted of models, models, models -- in all their barely dressed glory.

Razek said everything featured in the show, except the Valentine's Day products, is available in the Victoria's Secret stores. He noted, though, that many of the items were embellished, for production's sake, to make them look a bit more flashy. Victoria's Secret, based in Columbus, Ohio, is owned by Intimate Brands, Inc. (NYSE:IBI - news), in which The Limited Inc. (NYSE:LTD - news), owns an 84 percent stake.

``The wings won't be for sale and we only have one of the $12.5 million diamond-encrusted Miracle Bras,'' Razek said.

ABC DIDN'T HESITATE

While the theatrical value of the 2001 show was just as fantastic and eye-popping as the previous shows, viewers of this year's television special will no doubt be more pleased than viewers in previous years, who had to either watch the show in the flesh, so to speak, or via an Internet broadcast.

The first time the show was opened to mass audiences was just before Valentine's Day in 1999, when a record 1.5 million Internet users flooded the 17-minute live Webcast, causing the site to crash, leaving many unsatisfied viewers in its wake.

In 2000, the company timed the event to coincide with the famous Cannes Film Festival and once again decided to use the Internet as its mass medium of choice. That time, 2 million viewed the live Webcast with slightly better results.

This year, however, Razek said he wanted to do something totally different, so Victoria's Secret decided to pitch the idea of a pre-holiday television special to all four major U.S networks.

ABC was the first, and last, meeting.

``The first meeting on the first morning was with ABC, and about 15 minutes into the meeting, they said, 'We'll take it,''' Razek said. ``I think our instincts were right and I think the timing is right.''

At the party in the Bryant Park Hotel after the show, Heidi Klum was asked what it was like to wear this year's $12.5 million Heavenly Star bra, the diamonds-and-pink sapphires fantasy bra that's lined with platinum instead of fabric.

``At first, it feels a little cold,'' Klum told Reuters.

``Then, it warms up with the body heat,'' she added.